Fifth Party System

The Fifth Party System was a period of American political history from 1932 to 1972, during which America's two major parties, the Republican and Democratic parties, were divided into the "New Deal Coalition" and the "Conservative Coalition", opposing ideological factions of US Congress consisting of members of both parties. For the first time in American history, intra-party ideological groups were more important than the actual parties, and the Civil Rights movement and Cold War in the 1960s led to an ideological realignment which led to the birth of the Sixth Party System, under which the Republicans ascended to power during a conservative surge in American politics, ending the zenith of American liberalism which began with the New Deal and ended with the Great Society and led to a conservative backlash which led to Republican dominance of US politics from 1968 to 1992.

In 1932, in response to the collapse of America's prosperity and "Gilded Age" during the Great Depression, Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a "New Deal" under which the government would intervene in the country's dire situation and take responsibility for the well-being of its own people. Roosevelt won in a landslide, and his New Deal programs established relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. The onset of World War II in 1939 and the start of US involvement in 1941 led to the recovery of the national economy through the military-industrial complex, and the war established the United States as a global superpower, especially after it became the first country to use nuclear weapons in August 1945. Roosevelt served an unprecedented four terms, dying in office in 1945; his Vice-President Harry S. Truman succeeded him and presided over the county's reconstruction of Western Europe and the start of the Cold War. US troops took part in the occupation of West Germany alongside British and French troops, while Soviet troops occupied East Germany and Eastern Europe. Within a few years, both sides had set up opposing governments in their occupied countries, starting a global standoff which became known as the "Cold War". Europe was now divided along the Iron Curtain, divided between a democratic Western Bloc and a communist Eastern Bloc, and the Democratic-led US government provided aid to anti-communist regimes in the Marshall Plan. The United States also played a role in the creation and leadership of the United Nations, which was designed to prevent another world war by utilizing diplomacy instead of military force; the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China would be the UN's main powers, serving on the UN Security Council. In 1950, the USA led a United Nations mission to prevent Soviet-backed North Korea from invading South Korea in the Korean War, which devolved into stalemate due to Chinese intervention. In 1952, the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President, promising a stronger stance against communism. He signed a ceasefire with North Korea in 1953, preventing the North Koreans from conquering the South. Eisenhower continued to pursue an actively anti-communist foreign policy in the First Indochina War and the 1958 Lebanon crisis, and he also supported internal improvements such as the construction of the National Highway System and federal support for the growing African-American Civil Rights movement. In 1960, the Democrat John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Eisenhower's Vice-President Richard Nixon by promising to support civil rights and build self-sufficiency among the American people, asking them to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country." Kennedy supported civil rights initiatives, launched a failed attempt to overthrow the Cuban communist government in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion but peacefully resolved the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and deployed US advisors to South Vietnam to prevent a communist takeover, which he feared would lead to other US regional allies in Southeast Asia falling. Kennedy was assassinated by communist sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald in November 1963, and his vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency and was re-elected in 1964, defeating the hawkish Republican Barry Goldwater. Johnson escalated the Vietnam War in 1965 by deploying the first combat troops in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident a year earlier, and US troop levels rose as the US government conducted a bombing campaign against the North. The Vietnam War became widely unpopular in the United States due to the large number of US casualties, the inability to justify the war, and the rise of the counterculture movement in the United States, influenced by the spread of drugs such as LSD and marijuana, the rise of psychedelic rock music, the progressivism brought about by the Civil Rights movement, and the spread of European Trotskyist ideas to American youths. On the positive side, Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which increaesd the civil rights of African-Americans, ended segregation, ended race-based immigration restrictions, and ended discrimination in housing opportunities. These measures proved popular among progressives, but many white Catholics grew concerned about the rise of the Black Power movement in urban centers, the race riots which followed Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination by James Earl Ray in 1968, and the growth of the pro-choice and pro-drug decriminalization movements within the Democratic Party. In 1968, amidst nationwide anti-war demonstrations, Johnson decided against running for re-election, and Richard Nixon won the presidency in a landslide caused by conservative backlash against the Civil Rights and conterculture movements. In addition to the Republican strongholds in the Northeast, Midwest, and West, Nixon won several urban centers and even made inroads into the American South. Nixon reduced troop levels in Vietnam while also opposing the counterculture and antiwar movements, pursuing a policy of liberal conservatism. In 1972, widely popular for his support for moderate civil rights efforts, his Vietnamization policy, and his opposition to the Democratic nominee George McGovern's radical leftist policies, Nixon won re-election in a landslide, using his pro-states' rights "Southern Strategy" to win over the American South. 1968 and 1972 were realigning years in American politics, putting an abrupt end to the zenith of social liberalism in the United States and ushering in an era of realignment - the Sixth Party System.

The major parties of the period were:
 * Liberal dot 2.png The Democratic Party was a major political party founded in 1828 by Andrew Jackson. The party was founded on the principles of populism and social conservatism, but the rise of the progressive wing under William Jennings Bryan during the 1890s and the liberal reforms of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt marked the party's leftward shift.
 * Liberal dot 2.png The New Deal Democrats were the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Formed by supporters of Franklin D. Roosevelt's social liberal New Deal programs of the 1930s and 1940s, the New Deal Democrats attracted the support of Catholics, Jews, African-Americans, liberal white southerners, labor unions, urban machines, progressive intellectuals, and populist farm groups. New Dealers supported a strong central government which was able to regulate the country's failing economy and assume responsibility for employment during the Great Depression, and the New Dealers supported the increase in the number of government jobs (such as the Works Progress Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority), a welfare safety net, Social Security, and, during World War II, intervening in the conflict to join the fight against fascism and defend democracy overseas. The New Dealers therefore earned the ire of Conservative Democrats due to their economic differences and Taftite Republicans for their isolationism, but they were supported by liberal Northeastern Republicans due to their support for a strong anti-fascist and, later, anti-communist foreign policy. During the Cold War, the New Dealers and their Liberal Republican allies authorized the Marshall Plan to support the world's democracies against Soviet communism and engaged in the Korean War and the Vietnam War to forestall the communist "Domino Effect". In 1968, the New Deal coalition fell apart due to the growing anti-Vietnam War movement, the polarization brought about by the civil rights and Black Power movements (which alienated many urban whites), and the counterculture movement's influence on party policy (which alienated Catholic voters due to their opposition to abortion and drug use).
 * Liberal dot 2.png The Conservative Democrats were the dominant wing of the party from the 1900s to the 1920s. The successors of the Bourbon Democrats, the Conservative Democrats were supporters of pro-business economic policies and were opposed to the rising power of labor unions and the party's progressive wing. Many Conservative Democrats opposed the New Deal's economic interventionism on the grounds that it interfered with the country's traditional classical liberal economic system. After 1928, the Conservative Democrats were overcome by the New Deal Democrats as the dominant wing of the party, and, while the Democrats' pro-business wing withered outside the South during the 1930s and 1940s, Conservative Democrats remained prominent within the party's leadership in the North until the realignment of the 1960s, which drove many conservative Catholics and pro-business Democrats into the Republican ranks.
 * Traditionalist dot.png The Old Right Democrats were the traditionalist wing of the Democratic Party. Consisting mostly of Southern Democrats, the supporters of the "Old Right" continued to hold onto the beliefs of the party during the post-Reconstruction era, including the disenfranchisement and segregation of African-Americans, vehement support for states' rights, and support for laissez-faire capitalism. The Old Right Democrats consisted of both pro-business elites and populist rural whites, and they were united in their support for white supremacism, their support for the "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" myth, and their support for rigid social and fiscal conservatism. During the 1950s, the Old Right Democrats began to split from the national party due to the national party's support for the Civil Rights movement, and many Old Right leaders led "Massive Resistance" to federal desegregation orders until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 officially ended segregation. During the 1960s, many Southern Democrats began to reaffiliate themselves with the Republican Party, but, while the Southern Democrats overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates in every presidential election from 1972 onward (except for 1976), it would not be until the 1990s and 2000s that they voted overwhelmingly Republican at the state and local leves.
 * Progressive dot.png The Progressive Democrats were the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The progressives emerged as a major movement within the party during the 1960s, during which they opposed the New Deal establishment's aggressive foreign policy and supported a bolder stance on civil rights. In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy were the favored presidential candidates for the Progressive Democrats, as they called for an end to the Vietnam War. However, Kennedy was assassinated and McCarthy lost the primary election to New Dealer Hubert Humphrey. In 1972, the progressives united behind George McGovern, whose platform was mocked as "amnesty, abortion, and acid", and McGovern lost the election to the Republican Richard Nixon in a landslide. The party's leftward shift from 1968 to 1972, influenced by the New Left, counterculture, antiwar, and Civil Rights movements, alienated many white Catholic voters, who increasingly defected to the Republicans.
 * Big tent dot.png The Republican Party was a major political party founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists. The party was founded on the ideals of classical liberalism and moral rectitude, supporting the abolition of slavery, African-American civil rights, internal improvements, and modernization. However, the party's liberal orientation faltered during the 1890s and ended in 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt left the party and formed the Bull Moose Party. Starting in 1912, the conservative wing was dominant, and the Republicans would become increasingly conservative throughout the rest of the century.
 * Big tent dot.png The Taftite Republicans were a conservative and isolationist faction of the Republican Party led by US Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio. The Taftites were based in the Midwest, and they opposed government intervention in the economy, intervention in World War II, and, after the war's end, entering into foreign military alliances. Their strength declined as the result of the onset of the Cold War and the rise of the New Right Republicans. They became defunct in 1963.
 * Liberal dot 2.png The Liberal Republicans were a liberal-conservative-to-liberal faction of the Republican Party who were based in the Northeast. The Liberal Republicans' views were generally identical to those of the original Republican Party, and the liberals generally supported a deregulated economy and social liberalism. During the 1930s, Liberal Republicans became a vital part of the New Deal coalition, with Thomas E. Dewey, Fiorello La Guardia, Alf Landon, and Jacob K. Javits emerging as notable leaders; they supported New Deal programs and the US involvement in World War II. Dewey narrowly lost the 1948 presidential election to Truman, but, in 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a moderate conservative, was elected President, and he took liberal approaches towards continuing New Deal programs and supporting civil rights. The liberals became known as Rockefeller Republicans under the leadership of Nelson Rockefeller during the 1960s, continuing to support civil rights while opposing economic regulations and supporting law and order. The liberal faction declined during the 1970s as the New Right rose to power, and they became defunct during Ronald Reagan's presidency.
 * Big tent dot.png The New Right Republicans were a conservative faction of the Republican Party which emerged during the 1950s as the successors of the isolationist Taftites. Members of the "New Right" continued the Taftites' support for laissez-faire economic liberalism, but they abandoned protectionism in favor of free trade, incorporated religious morals into their platform, and advocated for an aggressive anti-communist foreign policy. The New Right was personified by Barry Goldwater in 1964, and the New Right soon morphed into the Conservative Republicans, becoming the dominant faction of the party during the 1970s and especially under Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.
 * Populist dot.png The Dixiecrats were a conservative splintergroup of the Democratic Party which took part in the 1948 presidential election, with Strom Thurmond serving as their presidential nominee. The Dixiecrats split from the Democratic Party due to President Harry S. Truman's support for civil rights initiatives, which the Dixiecrats - open white supremacists and opponents of African-American civil rights - were vehemently opposed to. The Dixiecrats won Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and one of Tennessee's electoral votes, but Truman narrowly won re-election, leading to the Dixiecrats' collapse and their return to the Democratic Party.
 * Populist dot.png The American Independent Party was a conservative and segregationist political party which was formed in 1967 with the goal of reimposing segregation and reversing the progress which the Civil Rights movement had made. The AIP nominated popular segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace as its presidential nominee, and he won Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, but Republican Richard Nixon ultimately won the election. The AIP then lost much of its strength, and many of its voters supported the Republicans at the presidential level after 1972.
 * Communist dot.png The Communist Party USA was a communist political party founded in 1919 as a splintergroup of the Socialist Party of America. CPUSA was a satellite of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and it embraced Stalinism from the 1920s to the 1950s. The party infiltrated Hollywood film studios and several labor unions, becoming a powerful "third column" within the democratic United States. From 1939 to 1941, the party supported Nazi Germany during World War II due to its alliance with the USSR under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but, after Operation Barbarossa in 1941, CPUSA supported anti-fascism and the US involvement in the war. During the 1950s, the US government cracked down on CPUSA as the Cold War escalated, establishing HUAC to investigate the CPUSA's membership among the Hollywood elite and in the US government in the "Second Red Scare". The party's strength was destroyed by the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, during which the Stalinist USSR crushed an anti-Stalinist communist government in Hungary, alienating many left-communists in the USA and worldwide. By the 1960s, CPUSA ceased to be a major political threat to the US government.